


let me fight now until the end of time

by awkwardspiritanimals



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Gen, but i didn't want to overwhelm right off the bat, i don't know how it really came to be either but here we are, knights AU, the whole gang's here and i'll probably update tags throughout, yes folks this is absolutely a thing that is happening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-05-13 12:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19250875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/pseuds/awkwardspiritanimals
Summary: When he was a kid, Rafael Barba never dreamed of being a knight. But it's the sort of thing that can happen when your best friend is the king-to-be.Now, with a war on the horizon and a dragon much closer than that, he has to grapple with the question of whom exactly a knight owes his service to.(or, more simply, the knights!au)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I can't believe it's a thing that's actually happening either, and I wasn't sure it was going to be a thing until I actually hit the post button, but we're all here now and I'm also actually very excited about a lot of this, so here we go.
> 
> I am an historian, but the sort of medieval European tilt to most of classical Western fantasy is very much outside of my area of expertise, and also I genuinely think anachronisms in fantasy can be all sorts of fun and interesting, so while I've done some research this simply isn't going to be a deep dive classical fantasy sort of thing, because I didn't find that particularly interesting to try to do in this fic. Basically I wanted dragons and swords and some knights in shining armor, but I also wanted cars and jeans, so any anachronisms you catch are either 1) an intentional choice on my part or 2) just something I'm doing unknowingly but that I didn't care enough about to do any deep research on it.

“Still trying to learn proper knighthood from books, Barba?”

Rafael turns to find Olivia grinning at him from across the open practice space outside the castle, her ragtag group of knights arrayed around her. He smirks, tucking his books under his arm.

“Think you can teach me a thing or two, Sir Benson? I’m always willing to learn,” he calls back as he starts towards them, which earns him an even larger grin from Olivia and a few laughs from the knights around her.

“Aren’t you worried about messing up your hair?” Amaro jokes, to further laughs from his fellow knights, but Olivia retrieves her sword from where it’s resting against the bench next to her. It’s longer than Rafael’s, heavier, and she can put all of her considerable force behind a blow in a way that he could never hope to match, but he’s quicker, hands and feet, and more precise with his weapon than she is.

Neither of them are really dressed to spar, especially not with their proper swords, although Olivia at least still has her half-armor on, mail shirt and spaulder over her sword arm. He’s only in the sweater and jeans he’d worn to the library, sword belt strapped across his hips, but he’s not about to turn down an opportunity to spar with Olivia Benson. Rafael hands his books to Carisi, who accepts them eagerly and tilts the stack to read the titles, and draws his sword as she sets her feet in a ready stance in front of him.

They’re completely still for a few moments, sizing each other up like this is the first time they’ve done this, and then Olivia lunges forward to cheers from her knights. He dances back out of the way, catches the blow with his own sword and twists upward, even though he knows she won’t lose her grip that easily, then takes his own swing. She blocks the wide arc of it easily, turns her shoulders to put her weight behind their crossed weapons and push him back again, and then they’re off, all singing steel.

She has the upper hand from the beginning, coming off of a training session with her squad rather than sitting in the library all day, even if he can feel her holding back a bit because he’s not wearing his armor. He holds his own, spins and falls out of the way every time she really throws her weight at him, cuts wide swinging arcs short to try and slip under the length of her sword, but it’s only a matter of time and they both know it.

Eventually Olivia blocks one of his attacks and tilts forward with her shoulder, but when he leans back to counter her push, she swings her sword down instead and catches one calf with the flat of the blade, pulling it back towards her to upset his already precarious balance and sending him tumbling backwards into the dirt.

He rolls quickly, manages to get up on to one knee, but he knows it’s over even before he feels the edge of her blade at his neck. Olivia is lit by the setting sun behind her as she stands over him, both of them breathing hard, and Rafael grins with all his teeth, tilts his chin up to look at her, exposing the full length of his throat. Something flashes in her eyes for a moment, and he lets his sword fall from his hand.

“I cede, Sir Benson,” he says softly, and after a few seconds she lets her own sword fall to her side, “Congratulations, Liv.”

“Well fought, Sir Barba,” she replies, offering a hand up as her squad claps, and then all official knightly decorum falls by the wayside as she returns his grin once she’s pulled him up out of the dirt and back on to even footing with her. “Join us for a drink, Rafa?”

“I’d love to, but I’ve got a meeting with the king. Next time?”

“Next time. Carisi, give the scholar knight his books back.”

“Of course. Actually, I had a question about-”

Fin wraps an arm around Carisi’s neck and pulls him backwards. “You heard the man, Carisi, he’s needed by His Majesty. You can ask him about whatever it is the next time Liv kicks his ass.”

“Until next time then,” Rafael says, to various waves and goodbyes from the squad, and a grin and a nod from Olivia. He’s going to be late to his meeting with Alex, but it’s more than worth it.

When Rafael reaches the room where the king meets with his advisors and the Royal Guard, he hears giggling behind the door, which cuts off abruptly when he knocks. After a few seconds, Alex calls “Come in!” and he opens the door to find him sitting at the end of the table and a young woman in a castle uniform dusting one of the bookshelves along the back wall.

“Sorry to interrupt?” he says, but Alex just smiles and gestures him into the room.

“Anna was just doing her rounds, and since my meeting was late, I told her she should go ahead and get started. Though I can see now what held you up, Sir Barba.”

Rafael tries to brush some of the dirt off of his knees. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

Alex laughs. “Give my regards to Sir Benson the next time you see her. Anna, could you give us a few minutes, and then we’ll get out of your way.” The young woman curtsies on her way out of the room, smiling back over her shoulder at the king. Rafael sets his books on the table and takes the seat to the left of Alex’s at the head of the table.

“Is Eddie coming?” he asks. They only ever use their titles in front of other people; behind closed doors it’s always been Rafi and Alex and Eddie.

“No, he’s handling something for me. And actually, I only needed to talk to you. Sir Bradley is retiring, and I thought that you-”

It’s Rafael’s turn to laugh. “Alex, I don’t want to be forced into some squad that is only going to resent me for taking their number two’s spot.”

“Fine,” Alex says, shaking his head, “You know, Sir Benson has an opening in her squad, with Sir Munch retiring.”

He doesn’t bother dignifying that one with an answer. Munch had put down his sword over a year ago, and Carisi had taken his place shortly after, but since SVU squad was almost always undersized, there was technically space to add another knight to the group. It’s not that he doesn’t like the idea of officially joining the squad, but in nearly three decades of knighthood he’s never been a part of any squad and has never wanted to be, and it feels pathetic and intrusive to have his childhood friend the king all but order them to include him when they do a fine job of that on their own.

Besides, he has Alex and Eddie. He’s spent considerably more time with Olivia and her squad in the past few years than with the two of them, because Eddie has his own squad and King Alejandro is considerably busier than Prince Alex had ever been, but when it is just the three of them, away from the Royal Guard and the king’s advisors and their obligations and their titles, it’s pretty much the same as it has always been.

Alex sighs, shifting the papers spread out in front of him. “I suppose I’ll give the spot to Sir Dodds then. His father’s requested it.”

“Michael Dodds wants to be in Benson’s squad?”

“His father certainly wants him to be.”

Rafael isn’t quite sure what to make of that. Olivia is, in his opinion, the best squad leader any knight could want, but the only member of her squad who has any noble blood at all is Rollins, who is from a kingdom to the south and thus isn’t generally considered a real noble at all, at least among the kingdom’s own. The rest of them are all of common blood, including Olivia herself, and he wonders if Dodds thinks that his son can leverage his own noble status to wrestle some degree of leadership away from her. If so, he’s seriously underestimating the loyalty that Olivia’s knights feel towards her personally, and he almost feels bad for the kid. On the other hand, maybe Dodds just wants his son to learn from the best.

“He’s welcome to it then. And lucky.” He glances at the papers Alex is shuffling. “Did you need anything else from me? Or was it just the offer you knew I’d refuse?”

“I’m just trying to look out for you, Rafi. Like always.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” Lately it’s felt like there’s something that he’s keeping back, but maybe that’s just the nature of kingship, that there are some burdens that simply cannot be shared, even with his oldest friend.

“I’m sure. Will you send Anna back in when you leave, if she’s still out there? I’m going to stay and work, but I don’t want to delay her.”

“Of course. You’re sure-?”

Alex laughs, waves him away. “I’m sure, Rafi. You worry too much.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s my job.”

“Then I’m giving you the night off.”

“Fine. Don’t work too late.”

Anna is indeed waiting outside when he exits, which seems strange if she’s worried about finishing her work, but Rafael only tells her that she has the king’s permission to continue cleaning the room while he works. She smiles and curtsies, and he nods back, already considering what to do with his newly free night.

\--------------

“I just don’t get what sort of knight prefers books to his sword.”

Rafael resists the urge to roll his eyes. “The sort that realizes there are solutions beyond the end of a weapon.”

“When you were a kid, dreaming about being a knight, you really imagined yourself sitting in the library reading books on chivalry and tactics?” Amaro asks, and he shrugs.

“I like books. Always have.”

Sitting next to Amaro, Fin laughs. “Haven’t you had this argument with Barba enough times? You didn’t even spar with him today, you were too busy beating the shit out of Dodds.”

It’s Amaro’s turn to shrug. “He’s gotta learn sometime.”

“Learn what exactly?” Rollins leans across the table towards him. “What valuable skill does you taking giant two-handed whacks at his head teach him?”

“That if he wants to make it as a real knight, all that classical training his dad got him is only going to go so far.”

Rollins, who is just as classically trained as Dodds, if not more so, and makes up for any predictability inherent in that by being quick as a snake, doesn’t bother responding. Dodds, sitting at the end of the table, new squad insignia on his shoulder, can’t quite seem to figure out if he should come to his own defense or not. He’d held his own as far as Rafael could tell from what he’d seen between his own bouts with Rollins and Carisi, and he thinks he’ll probably do just fine in the squad once he settles in, as long as his ambition-- or his father’s-- doesn’t outstrip his good sense. He hasn’t seen Olivia since Dodds had joined the squad, and she’d had a squad leaders’ meeting during training today, so he’s not sure what she thinks.

He’s considering heading home for the evening-- Rollins and Amaro are settling into their argument, which means it will be difficult to get a word in-- when Eddie comes in with a couple of his squadmates. Eddie’s squad has always been friendly enough, but Rafael still waits until he’s gone up to the bar by himself before he goes over to join him. Asking Eddie about Alex is one thing, and asking Sir Garcia about the mission the king had sent him on in front of their fellow knights is entirely another.

Eddie grins when Rafael leans against the counter next to him. “Hey, Rafi.”

“You get back this morning?”

“Late last night. Saw your mom, by the way. She says hello.”

“You were in the Bronx?”

“Unless your mom has moved without letting you know. She wanted me to tell you that you should visit more often.”

“Did she mention that I’m going up there next week?”

Eddie laughs. “It must have slipped her mind.” He thanks the bartender as he leaves a drink in front of him. “You remember the hills outside of the city, where we used to go searching for dragons?”

“What’s Alex interested in that far north?”

He shrugs. “He joked about building a castle up there, but mostly he wanted me to survey the border.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t say anything specific.” Another laugh. “It’s his kingdom, Rafi. Probably good that he knows where it ends.”

“That border has been there for centuries. Since before the Muñozes even took the throne. Why send you all that way to look at it instead of having one of the knights in the Bronx do it?”

“Don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you, you know that.”

And he does know, although that knowledge isn’t as comforting as Eddie probably intends it to be. Alex sending him and Eddie out on errands isn’t anything new, but it was a lot more common back when he was only the prince and didn’t have the King’s Guard at his beck and call, not to mention every other knight in the kingdom, if he felt the need. Those missions had never been secrets though, and the idea that Alex is sending Eddie out to the edges of the kingdom without telling him why, that he’s keeping something from both of them, makes Rafael feel off-balance.

“You’re here with Benson’s squad?” Eddie asks, glancing back over his shoulder, and Rafael nods. “Before I left, Alex said he was going to offer you a spot with them.”

“He did. Even though it’s not really his spot to offer.”

“That why you turned him down?”

“Who said I turned him down?”

“I’ve known you a long time, Rafi, nobody needed to actually say it. But Alex told me when I got back. You really think Benson would be against you joining?”

“No.” Honestly, he doubts Olivia has ever even considered it either way. Her complaints about being undermanned seem to have more to do with SVU tradition than any desire for actual reinforcements. And even if she did want to fill out her squad, he doesn’t think she’d want him, especially because nothing would really change. He trains with them, patrols with them, and hangs out with them, and officially joining the squad would just make things more complicated in both the short and long term. “I don’t need a squad.”

“Well, it’s good to know there’s people who’ve got your back either way.” He grabs his drink off of the bar and nods at Rafael. “See you around, Rafi.”

“See you.”

Rafael watches him rejoin his squadmates, swallowing against the uneasy feeling settling into his stomach. Something is going on with Alex, something he’s keeping from Rafael, maybe from everyone else as well, all his guards and advisors, and he’s roped Eddie in without telling him anything either. He doesn’t know what Alex could possibly be so interested in at the border, but maybe while he’s visiting his mother he can go up there himself and figure it out, or at least enough of it that he can get Alex to talk to him about whatever it is.

Rafael sighs, pushing away from the bar to go say his good nights to the squad. He doubts he’ll be very good company for the rest of the night.

\-------------

“Caballero del sol!” calls his grandmother from her spot on the porch, and Rafael shakes his head as he walks up the steps of the little steps of the house she and his mother share.

“Abuelita,” he says, trying and failing to suppress a smile as he leans down to kiss her cheek and let her hug him, “You know there haven’t been any Sun Knights in decades.”

“And there will be again, once your king finally decides to sort it all out.”

“Don’t let Mami hear you talking like that.” He settles into the chair next to her. “Where is she?”

“Getting groceries. She should be back soon.”

“She’s back now.”

Rafael jumps up to help his mother, but she only lets him take two bags, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“You’re late, Rafi.”

“I’m sorry, Mami. There was something I had to take care of and I didn’t want to leave again once I’d gotten here, but it took longer than I thought it would.”

It shouldn’t have, because the hills Alex is so interested in haven’t changed all that much in the decades since they were kids running all over them in search of dragons. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, Alex himself too busy to get away to visit so he’d sent Eddie instead, and he’d spent far too long waiting for something deeper to be revealed to him when all he’d really done was waste a few hours of his life and risk his mother’s wrath.

“I got here in time for dinner, sí?”

“You got here in time to help with dinner,” his mother corrects, at least letting Rafael open the door for her instead of trying to do it herself with all the bags she’s carrying, and he holds it open for his grandmother to shuffle in after her, reaching up a slightly shaky hand to pat his cheek as she passes.

He moves between the kitchen and the living room, helping his mother with the dinner preparations and his grandmother with the puzzle she’s working on, content to let the two of them do most of the talking. It’s not until he stands up after sliding the dishes into the oven that he realizes his mother has noticed, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, giving him a pointed look.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or do I have to guess?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He sighs. “There’s something bothering Alex, or something he’s planning, and he’s not telling me about it.”

“Maybe he’s just waiting for the right time. Or maybe there isn’t actually anything to worry about.”

Rafael shakes his head. “He’s sending Eddie off on missions without telling him why. I keep walking in on him having hushed conversations that stop the minute I walk in. There’s something he’s hiding from _me_. I know we’re not- I know things aren’t how they used to be, but still.”

“He’s king now, Rafi. There are probably going to be things he just can’t tell you.”

Rafael swallows against the lump in his throat, but he doesn’t know if it’s the thought that that might be true or that it might not that’s causing it, and pushes away from the counter where he’d been leaning next to her. “Did you need anything else for dinner? I think I’ll go help abuelita with her puzzle.”

“Rafi…”

“It’s fine, Ma. Like you said, maybe it’s nothing.”

He wishes it really was that easy to shake off.

\---------------

“Planning a trip? Didn’t you just get back from the Bronx?”

Rafael looks up from the maps spread in front of him to find Olivia smiling at him, and he can’t help returning it.

“It’s research.” He glances around the library. “Coming over to my side of the argument?”

She laughs. “You wish. Noah needs some more books.” She tilts her head towards where Rafael can see Noah making his way down one of the shorter shelves of children’s books.

“Well, one out of two Bensons isn’t too bad.”

Another laugh, and she takes the chair across the table from him. “You’re researching the Bronx?”

“The border north of the city, actually. The king’s sent a few people up there to survey it recently.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Hence the research. Thought maybe I could figure out what has caught his attention.”

“Huh.” Olivia shifts one of the maps towards her to get a better look. “Fin would tell you that there’s only two reasons that kings suddenly start showing an interest in their kingdom’s borders. They’re going to change them, or they’re going to cross them. Usually both, since other kingdoms don’t generally let you move _their_ borders without permission.”

Rafael feels the blood drain from his face, even as he says, “Alex- Alex wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t he? You know better than anyone that he’s an ambitious guy. Expanding the kingdom would be much bigger than anything his father or his grandfather ever did.”

She’s not wrong about any of that, but Olivia doesn’t know Alex like he does. She hasn’t known him since they were five, hasn’t listened to him talk for years about how he wants to be a _good king_ , to uphold the legacy of his family, to do something great. And this…

The kingdom hasn’t seen a war in nearly thirty years, and even then they hadn’t been the aggressors. And a war now would be… Rafael can’t even imagine it, not really, and nothing he can imagine is anything he’s willing to pay for... what? A few hundred square miles of territory? A castle in the Bronx?

“I don’t…” he starts, but he doesn’t know what he actually wants to say, and he’s relieved when he notices Noah making his way over towards them carrying a stack of books.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Hey, Uncle Rafa.” He slides the stack onto the table in front of Olivia. “I want these ones, please.”

“You sure you want all of those?” she asks, and Noah nods, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little, “I think maybe you’re spending too much time with your Uncle Rafa.”

“No such thing,” Rafael says, managing a smile, “Right, amigo?” Noah nods again even more enthusiastically.

“Alright, we better check those out so we can get home and you can get started on reading them.” Olivia picks up half the stack of books and hands the other half to Noah, lingering by the table for a few moments as he heads towards the front desk. “You’ll let me know? What you find out, what I can do?”

“Of course.”

Making that promise somehow feels like the easiest thing he’s done in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I would like to express my disbelief that I tricked myself into writing this AU by speaking it into existence on twitter in an attempt to trick one of you into writing it, but here we are. This first chapter is a bit clunky, even in comparison to my normal fairly clunky style, but the set-up here and in the first bit of chapter two are necessary to really be able to dig into the bigger themes and the interpersonal stuff. I really enjoy AUs, but I only really enjoy the worldbuilding of it all in the sense that it lets you explore familiar themes and relationships in new and interesting settings. So I'm cramming quite a bit of all that into the front part of the fic so we can get on with the fun stuff, which probably isn't how you're advised to do that, but we're going with it.
> 
> The half-armor that is mentioned towards the beginning isn't a quote-unquote real thing. Both chain shirts and spaulders are real and you can look them up to help you picture what it looks like, but the combination of them is more because I wanted something between their full suits of armor and nothing, something more comfortable that would still provide at least some protection. Like I said in the note up top, there are enough intentional and blatant anachronisms that I'm not bothering to deep dive into research to stop the unintentional ones. I just wanted to point this one out because it'll be a recurring thing that various characters are wearing, and I didn't want you guys to struggle with the visual of it because I sort of made it up.
> 
> In chapter two, we'll get a bit more insight on the how and why of Rafael becoming a knight, really start to kick the plot off, and, I don't know, probably some other stuff? I'm imagining this as something much closer to 12 or 13 chapters than some 37 part epic, but I'll know more about that once I've gotten more written.
> 
> Fic title from [The Last Limit of Bhakti](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut-Otz_gwrc) by The Mountain Goats. There may at some point be chapter titles, but as of right now there are not. If you have questions, feel free to ask them in a comment or at my [tumblr](awkwardspiritanimals.tumblr.com) or to ask me on twitter [@awkspiritanimal](https://twitter.com/awkspiritanimal), where I will probably do most of my extra talking about this fic as I write it, if that's something that interests you.
> 
> I might come back and edit this note when it is not five in the morning, but this is what we're going with for now.


	2. Chapter 2

Rafael had never dreamed of being a knight.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that kids from his neighborhood generally dreamed about, especially not when that kid was a scrawny bookworm who talked too much and routinely got his ass kicked. Being a knight wouldn’t have ever really occurred to that kid, except that the Mu ñozes were from the Bronx.

They lived in Manhattan of course, because it was the capital city, centrally located within the kingdom, but they were  _ from _ the Bronx long before they were the royal family, and their efforts to remain connected to the city meant that Prince Alejandro Muñoz spent a lot of time up north. And all the time Alex spent in the Bronx, being a man of the people even when he was only five or six, meant that he could befriend scrawny bookworms who talked too much.

Even then, Rafael had never considered that being one of the future king’s best friends might result in knighthood. When they were really young, he hadn’t really understood the full implications of Alex’s position, and by the time he had, it was hard to think of Alex as anything but  _ Alex _ . He was going to do great things, of course, but that was because he was Alex, not because he was the future king.

_ Knights _ was just a kid’s game the three of them played when they were little, play-fighting with sticks and hunting dragons, like thousands of other kids. They’d stopped once they’d gotten older and Alex had more responsibilities, responsibilities that he generally dragged Rafael and Eddie along to, and Rafael hadn’t given the idea another thought until the day a few months after Alex had turned eighteen, when he’d shown up after a trip to Manhattan with a proclamation from his father that Eduardo Garcia and Rafael Barba were to receive knighthoods at the request of Prince Alejandro Mu ñoz.

In general it wasn’t all that surprising, since Alex’s grandfather had done away with the nobility requirements decades ago, and his father had gre atly expanded the ranks of common blood knights, particularly after the clashes along the southeastern border of the kingdom a few years before. And it made sense that a king would want at least some of his knights to be his friends as well, and that Alex would pick Eddie, who seemed in every way to be made for this sort of thing. But the offer had been for both of them, and Rafael had been baffled, doubly so when he realized that he was the only one who actually seemed surprised at it.

His mother had been overjoyed at the thought of  _ her son, the knight _ , and his grandmother had practically glowed with pride. Even his father had been pleased, and some part of Rafael had wanted to refuse simply to spite him. Eddie had been enthralled by the adventure and the togetherness that was inherent in it.

And Alex had been Alex, magnetic, idealistic, a boy king, Rafael’s best friend and the person who had always believed that he was worthy of all this, and then committed to that belief with action. King Ramón even planned to relinquish his throne for an afternoon so that his son’s first official act as king could be making his best friends into knights.

And in the face of all that, Rafael hadn’t really been able to say no. Plus, a knighthood took him out of the Bronx and into Manhattan’s biggest libraries, and if he spent more time in them than he did sparring, there weren’t technically any rules against that-- he knew because he’d looked it up. If Rafael was going to be a knight, he was going to do it his way.

The throne room had been crowded the day of the ceremony, everyone who was anyone in the kingdom eager to be able to say they had been there for Prince Alejandro’s first act as king, and even though Rafael had known they weren’t really there for him, he’d still felt a flash of pride at the sight of all those knights and nobles crowded against the walls while his mother and grandmother sat in pride of place in the front row.

Rafael had gone first-- Barba then Garcia, alphabetically--, and he and Alex had both been trying not to grin, to keep their faces locked into expressions that were as stoic and grown-up as the occasion called for.

_ Rafael Barba, do you commit yourself to the service of this kingdom and its king? _

_ I do. _

_ And will you faithfully and honorably discharge your duties until such time as your term of duty is ended? _

_ I shall. _

_ Then I declare you Sir Rafael Barba, a Knight of the Kingdom of New York. May you render good service in the name of your kingdom and its people. _

\----------------

“Rafael, I hear we’ve been missing each other all week.” It’s been closer to two weeks, but Rafael doesn’t say anything as Alex stands up from the throne. He doesn’t mention that he’s been trying to make an appointment with Alex every day since he’d spoken to Olivia in the library and that he’s been turned away every time. “Eddie said he talked to you.”

“He did.”

“You really do worry too much. It was just something I wanted looked into. I didn’t even bother to make it into an official investigation, which is why I sent Eddie, instead of one of the Guard.”

“Why not just have one of the knights stationed in the Bronx do it?”

“I needed somebody I could trust, and I wanted the report in person. No need to make more work for someone when Eddie was happy to do it. It was really just… a fantasy, one that I indulged for a moment. There are a lot of things that a king has to keep track of, and I need to keep my options open. It’s hard to understand, I know.”

He bites back a comment about how it really doesn’t seem all that complicated. “Harder when you won’t explain.”

“You’re being dramatic, Rafi. Listen, my father’s been gone for a few years now, and it’s time for me to really start coming into my own as king. Understanding and considering all my options is part of that.”

“Aren’t there already plenty of things within the kingdom that the king should be spending his time and energy addressing?”

“Of course there is,” Alex says, laughing, “And I’ll work on them. Like I said, there’s a lot I have to keep track of, a lot of different things that I need to consider.

“Then-”

One of the doors at the back of the throne room opens and a young woman steps through. Rafael thinks that she’s an assistant for one of the lord advisors, and she stops short when she notices him.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, they said you had finished for the day.”

“Not your fault, Jenny. Sir Barba’s visit was unscheduled, and I think we’ve finished. Haven’t we?” Alex says, and hurt and anger flare in Rafael’s stomach at being so easily dismissed, even though he knows the conversation hadn’t been going anywhere anytime soon.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you for your time.”

\---------------

“So, what’s bothering you?”

“You,” Rafael answers without looking up from his book, “I’m reading.”

“You haven’t turned a page in fifteen minutes.” Rita slides the book away from him. “Is it turning down the king’s offer to join Benson’s squad?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Please, you know that no one loves gossip like the King’s Guard. What I don’t get is why you turned him down. You’re practically a member of SVU already.”

“ _ Practically _ being the key word. It’s not really his spot to offer.”

“Well, did you tell Olivia that he’d made the offer and see what she thought?” He ducks his head, but he can feel Rita still trying to meet his eyes across the table. “You won’t let King Muñoz add you to the squad because you think that that is Olivia’s call and not his-- and I agree with you in spirit, even if you’re technically wrong--, but you won’t talk to Olivia about it and actually find out what she thinks about the idea, so you’re just going to let little Dodds take your spot?”

“It’s not my spot. And  _ little _ Dodds is about six and a half feet tall, and fitting in quite nicely.”

“Wow, that was so far from the point, and you know that. Seriously, what is it? Some kind of weird chivalry thing where you won’t join her squad because-”

“I’m not going to let him push me into Liv’s squad because he thinks it will be a distraction that’ll keep me away from the castle and out of his way,” he says, and immediately regrets it. He should really be better about not letting Rita push his buttons by now.

“Lots of layers to unpack on that one. Does whatever he wants to distract you from have to do with all the conversations he’s been having with Lord Abraham in hushed tones?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Hm. You know what your best revenge would be?”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“You have to go, right now, and tell Olivia that you’re in love with her.”

Rafael laughs in spite of himself. “Any other suggestions?”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? You both are, because you’re a smart guy and there’s no way you haven’t figured out that she wants you back.”

“If it was as easy as you want it to be, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“I doubt that, but why isn’t it easy? She’s your best friend.”

They’ve had this conversation enough, and with increasing frequency over the last year or so, that Rafael knows she’s not really asking so much as taking the opportunity to once again reiterate her own points. He wishes he could articulate his own, but he’s never managed it in a way that didn’t just end up making Rita scoff. Talking about his feelings for Olivia is difficult enough without simultaneously making an argument for why he couldn’t tell  _ her _ about those feelings.

“It’s Liv. There’s too much to lose by doing something… impulsive.”

“You ever think about how much there is to lose if you never do anything?”

\-------------

“I see he hasn’t totally come over to my side of the argument,” Rafael says, and Olivia smiles up at him, standing behind the bench. Noah is out on the greenspace, play-sparring with some of his friends.

“I seem to recall you picking up a sword yourself every once and awhile.”

Rafael settles onto the bench next to her, and they watch Noah play for a few minutes in silence before Olivia asks, “Did you get a chance to talk to the king?”

He sighs, even though he had known she was going to ask, even though that’s why he had come to see her. “I did.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Nothing.”

“He wouldn’t talk to you?”

“No, he did. Eventually. But he just talked around it, didn’t commit to anything one way or another. It was like… We’re not as close as we used to be, and we haven’t been for a long time. Probably longer than I’ve ever been willing to admit. But he’s never talked to me like… It could have been anyone in that room with him, and he would have said the exact same things. Like I was just…” He trails off, feeling hurt and vulnerable and ridiculous, leaning back against the bench and looking up at the sky.

“You’re not  _ just _ anything, Rafael,” she says, looking so fiercely sincere that he feels his breath catch in his chest. He’d stretched his arm across the back of the bench without thinking when he’d sat down, and she isn’t leaning against his side, but she’s sitting close enough that she could, her knee pressed against his. “You really think he’ll go through it?”

“Yes. I don’t know when, or even what exactly, but if he wasn’t going to do whatever it is, he would have just told me that. He wouldn’t have danced around it so he could swear later that he never lied to me.”

“We’ll have to figure something out then.”

“We?”

“Of course. We’ve got each other’s backs, you and I. And the squad too. Whatever is coming, we’ll figure something.”

She smiles, and it’s this that he can’t bear to lose, that he can never quite explain to Rita or anyone else, this closeness and this ease and the warmth of her next to him.

“We’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I promise there is real live actual plot next chapter, and also a dragon, so you've got that to look forward to. I'd also like to formally apologize for the mess of tenses in that opening section, but I tried my best and therefore should not be judged in any way.
> 
> I've got chapter three mostly planned, so once again, hopefully that will be up sooner rather than later and we can really get this party started.
> 
> Again, if you've got questions, feel free to ask them here or [@awkspiritanimal](https://twitter.com/awkspiritanimal) or at my tumblr, [my tumblr](awkwardspiritanimals.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

People are starting to talk.

The fact that no one really knows what’s going on isn’t much of a deterrent, and if Rafael didn’t know Alex as well as he does, he might think that was his goal, to get people talking about his grand plans, gauge what people are thinking. But Alex has rarely, if ever, been all talk, and he doubts he’s decided to start now. Whatever he’s planning, it’s not a bluff.

Glancing at his watch, he closes the book in front of him and adds it to the pile at the side of the table. Olivia and Carisi had both found him earlier in order to invite him out for drinks with the squad, and he knows if he doesn’t show up, they’ll come find him and drag him out anyway. For the first time since… well, at least since he’d met SVU squad, he’s going to fall well short on his sparring hours for the week. Lord Dodds will probably have something to say about it, but a reprimand for neglecting the training grounds for the library is even further down Rafael’s list of worries than it usually is.

He’s spent more time in the library in the past week than he has since he first came to Manhattan, homesick and glad to be away at the same time, and not at all sure he was interested in being a knight at all, despite the fact that he now was one. But all of that reading hasn’t amounted to anything, because all it’s done is make clear that there are only two ways to stop a king or queen of New York from doing what he thinks Alex is planning.

You talk them out of it or you-

He sets the books down on the return shelf with a thump. Chances are that SVU isn’t done with their training for the day yet, but sitting in the bar to wait for them sounds more appealing than staying here, where he’ll flip uselessly through more books and do his best not to think about that second option, which isn’t the sort of thing the king’s oldest friend wants to think about. He’ll be trying not to think about it at the bar too, but at least there he can drink.

Rafael has been nursing his scotch at SVU’s usual table for about fifteen minutes when the squad files in. They all head towards the bar to get their own drinks, except for Amaro, who leans over to say something to Olivia and then begins to make his way over to the table. Based on the look Olivia shoots him across the room and the expression on Amaro’s face, Rafael drains the rest of his drink.

“What the hell does your friend think he’s doing?”

Rafael bites back as much of his irritation as he can. “By my friend, I assume you’re referring to _the king_?”

“An invasion across the northern border? He can’t be serious about this.”

Of course that was what Rafael had assumed Alex was planning, but that’s by far the most specific accusation that anyone else has made.

“What have you heard?”

“Like you really need me to tell you?” Rafael just glares, and Amaro scoffs. “Dodds’ father told him that Muñoz asked about numbers and preparedness for a large-scale and prolonged mission, and everyone knows he’s been sending people up to the Bronx. You’re not even gonna try and stop him from doing this?”

“Who says I haven’t been trying? I’m one knight, not a sorcerer. I can’t just wave my hand and convince him not to go to war.”

Amaro opens his mouth to say something else but is interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the squad.

“Everything okay over here?” Olivia asks, settling into the chair next to Rafael, and Amaro leans back from the table with a forced smile.

“Fine. We were just discussing the king’s plans.”

“He’s not really gonna do it, is he?” Carisi asks, dropping into his own chair, “I mean, aside from anything else, isn’t he worried about the dragon?”

Everyone at the table groans, except for Rollins, who raises her eyebrows.

“Y’all have dragons up here? Where have you been hiding them?”

“In Carisi’s imagination. There’s only one dragon, and it’s a myth,” Amaro says, “Don’t you think, if there was really a dragon that was supposed to be helping the king and protecting the kingdom, it would have shown up somewhere by now? Like maybe at the southern border during the war? Fin, you notice any dragons while you were down there?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve just been waiting all these years for somebody to ask about it before I said something.”

The whole table laughs, but Carisi still looks dead serious.

“All those stories have some bit of truth to them. Something that inspired them in the first place.”

“What’s the story?” Rollins asks, and Fin nods at Rafael.

“Barba knows it better than anyone, let him tell it.”

That’s probably true. Rafael has been fascinated by the stories about the kingdom’s dragon since he was a little kid, and he’s read every version he could get his hands on. Alex had always led their childhood expeditions out into the hills, but Rafael had usually been the to suggest them in the first place.

“There’s been some version of the story or another as long as there’s been a kingdom, but the most recent one generally says that when the Muñozes were leading the effort to unseat the previous line of rulers because of their abuses of power, a dragon offered to help them, both in overthrowing the king and in the future whenever they might need its help. Its condition was that the Muñozes promised to never change the kingdom’s borders unless they could do so without endangering the lives of a single citizen.”

“See? Some king or another made up a story to keep the lords out at the edges of the kingdom from getting antsy and deciding to expand their own lands by marching off into other kingdoms, and the rest of them have just tweaked the story however worked best for them.”

“So you’re opposed to the king’s plan on principle, not because of the dragon.”

“I’m opposed because it’s gonna end up with a lot of people dead, including maybe me, just so he can bulk up his resume for the history books. And things’ll be worse if we end up winning than if we lose, because if we win, that’ll have to be occupied territory for decades. The king’ll spend the rest of his life fighting this war, and his daughter will probably spend most of hers doing the same thing. This is the kind of shit that kills people for generations.”

The table is silent. Rafael can feel both Olivia and Amaro’s eyes on him, but he can’t bring himself to look at either one of them.

“Huh,” Carisi says, fiddling with his glass on the table, “Where’s a dragon when you need one?”

\----------------

“Rafa!” He looks up to see Olivia jogging towards him. “Hey, I was hoping I would catch you. Thought you’d be in the library.”

“I wanted some air.” She gives him a sympathetic look, but he can tell that something else is worrying her. “What do you need?”

“I’m scheduled for patrol tonight, but Lucy had a family thing come up at the last minute and I don’t have anyone else to watch Noah.”

“You need me to take your shift?”

“Normally that’s what I’d ask, but Dodds has decided to be a stickler about hours again, and-”

“I can watch him.”

“Are you sure? I know you’re short on training hours this week.”

“Even if I could make them up in one evening, I wasn’t planning on it. It’s no problem, Liv, I’d love to watch him.”

He means it, and not just because he likes spending time with Olivia’s son. All Noah is worried about his spelling list and extra helpings of dessert, and Rafael is thankful for a genuine distraction from borders and dragons and Alex’s plans. After he makes dinner, they work on Noah’s homework and then play Legos for a while. By the time Olivia gets home, Noah is asleep in bed and Rafael is dozing on the couch. She drops down next to him, leaning against his side.

“How was he?”

“Excellent. Although he did make me read him a second book before he’d go to sleep.”

“That’s just because he knows you’re a big softie and will do it.”

“I just place a high value on literacy, Olivia.” She leans her head against his shoulder, and he can feel her laughing. “How was patrol?”

“Quiet. I think I finally convinced Amaro and Rollins to stop calling Mike ‘little Dodds,’ at least to his face.”

“A good day’s work.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about Amaro the other evening, by the way. I told him you didn’t know anything more than we did, and that the king isn’t talking with you about what he’s planning, but… He’s worried, and angry, and it’s not like he can take it out on the king, so…”

“So I’m the easy target. You don’t have to apologize for Amaro, Liv, and I don’t need you to protect me from him.”

“I know that, Rafa, and that’s what I told him when he accused me of it. Although I think he took that as permission to give you a hard time.”

“I didn’t know he felt that he needed permission to do that,” he says, and she laughs again, settling more firmly against his side. “It’s late, I should probably get home.”

“You can stay, if you want,” she says, and Rafael focuses on keeping his breathing even.

“I think I’m too old to sleep on your couch, Liv,” he responds, laughing, but Olivia doesn’t say anything, and with her head on his shoulder he can’t see her face, can’t see if she’s disappointed or amused by his joke.

Olivia has always been braver than him, but it seems unlikely that she’s decided to up the ante on his occasional invitations for dinner or drinks after training and patrols by propositioning him on her sofa. And she means far too much to him for Rafael to do anything based on an assumption when they’re both tired and he can’t see her face.

He leans over and presses a kiss against her hair. “I should go.”

She leans away from him with a sigh. “Thank you again, for watching him.”

“Of course, any time.” He stands to retrieve his sword belt and buckle it on. “We’ve got a patrol shift together on Friday, I think.”

“We do.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“See you, Rafa.”

He wants to say _something_ , but everything he can think of feels like either too much or too little.

\---------------

He can tell Olivia is laughing at him, even though her visor is down and he can’t see her face.

“You know I hate full armor. You’ve known this practically since we met.”

“And yet despite that knowledge, it never gets any less amusing to watch you hate it.”

He huffs, knocking his own visor down into place. “Are we waiting on a third?”

She shakes her head. “Everyone else has their hours for the week, and I figured the two of us could handle it.”

“Speaking of hours,” he says as they set off, “I couldn’t help noticing that Lord Dodds never tracked me down to reprimand me for falling short on my sparring hours this week.”

Her armor clinks as she shrugs. “I might have listed you in few sessions where you were only there in spirit.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I would have done it for anyone in the squad who had a good reason.”

“Not worried that Mike will turn you in?”

“Are you kidding? This afternoon he offered to cover this shift for the both of us, even though he’s already significantly over his own hours for the week. I don’t know if he’s just like that or if he’s trying to impress me.”

“I know which one I’d put my money on,” he says, and he’s sure she’s rolling her eyes like she does every time he mentions how her squad feels about her, but he wouldn’t be surprised at all if Mike Dodds had joined the list of Olivia’s admirers.

“Regardless, I doubt he’ll turn us in. So, was the risk of reprimand worth it? Were you able to find anything?”

They’re out at the edge of the city, and he stares out towards the bits of the forest to the south that he can see. “No. There’s nothing except- There’s only two options for something like this, either someone talks him out of it or…”

“Or we remove him from the throne.” He turns to look at her where she’s leaning against the nearest building. “It isn’t hard to figure out, Rafa. I was hoping you could find something in those law books you like so much, but-”

“There’s nothing,” he repeats, “And if what Dodds told you all is accurate, then the king isn’t going to wait much longer before announcing his plans.”

“Well,” Olivia says, pushing away from the wall, “We’ll just have to talk him out of it then.”

“That might be dangerous, Liv.”

“Talking?”

“Alex… he’s waited his whole life for this. Not just to be king, but to prove he’s worthy of it. Worthy of the kingdom. We’re talking about borders and plans, but for Alex, this is _destiny_. Talking him out of that? I’m his oldest friend, and I don’t know if it’s possible.”

“You didn’t say difficult, you said dangerous.”

“Ardently and publicly opposing the king? A king about to lead his kingdom into war? There are people who will call that-”

“Treason? I know what’s at stake, Rafa. You say Muñoz has been waiting his whole life for this? All I’ve ever wanted to be is a knight, and my duty is to protect the kingdom, no matter what the threat looks like.”

“I’m a knight too, Liv. And I became one for Alex.”

“Then do this for him too. For kingdom and king, like the oath says. Maybe it really is impossible, Rafa, but we can’t do nothing.”

“If there’s anyone I’d want to attempt the impossible with, it’s you, Liv.”

“That’s good, because before we convince the king of anything, we have to persuade Nick not to just storm the castle gates. It’ll be good practice.”

He laughs, despite the sick feeling in his gut. They’re walking close enough that he can see her eyes through her visor, bright and determined and-

The building in front of them explodes.

The blast of heat and Olivia hit him at about the same moment as she tackles him out of the way, her reactions quicker than his. They scramble to untangle and right themselves, and Rafael shoves his visor out of his face as he reaches his knees, struggling to process the impossible sight in front of him even as he registers everything else.

The plume of light had spread towards the building, not away from it.

It had been Olivia who had knocked them over, because the wave that had reached them had been all heat, with no concussive force behind it.

The building, while it’s now engulfed in flame, is otherwise still intact.

There had been no explosion.

Rafael feels Olivia’s hand grip his elbow as the dragon, scaled in gold and black, smoke still curling from the corners of its mouth, turns its massive head to look at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you guys that this really is the last of the set-up chapters, and from now on everything will be considerably meatier and also longer. All the different threads going forward have now been introduced in one way or another and we can really get fully underway on both the interpersonal and the narrative plots. Hopefully, the quality of these updates will increase dramatically as we get out of the parts I've dreaded writing and into the parts I've been very much looking forward to.
> 
> Special shoutout to [Handfulofdust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Handfulofdust/), who requested that knights!au feature a dragon and helped me solve a major plot problem when I was first starting to really put the fic together. It turns out that adding a dragon to your knights-based alternate universe fic is a great way to up the stakes and complicate your plot in one easy step.


	4. Chapter 4

The sound of Olivia drawing her sword breaks Rafael out of his shock, at least enough that he lifts his hand to the pommel of his own, although what exactly she thinks the two of them are going to do he isn’t sure.

At least they don’t need to worry about the building, which had been abandoned and decrepit, boards over the windows. He barely manages to hold in a hysterical laugh at the idea that the dragon had just saved someone a lot of money in demolition costs, but at least there wouldn’t be anyone who needed to be resc-

“Help! Help us!”

He can feel Olivia tense next to him, fighting the urge to turn towards the shout because she has to keep all her attention on the dragon in front of her. Except the dragon itself swings its head towards the building, and it’s hard to miss the changing expression on a face that large and angular. If he didn’t know better, Rafael would say it looks almost… surprised. He draws his sword as it turns back towards them, but it doesn’t seem all that interested in them anymore. Instead, it shifts its shoulders and unfurls wings that look too big even for its immense body.

Despite their size, and despite the fact that their first flap creates a downward gust that nearly forces Rafael back to his knees, he still can’t quite believe the dragon gets off the ground. Nothing that big should be able to move like that, to go from still to flying with one relatively small movement. He’s only able to look away from the sight because Olivia is pulling at his arm.

“Rafa, we have to go!” She has to shout in order to be heard, and he knows when she says _go,_ she doesn’t mean away from the dragon, rapidly ascending into the sky, or away from the fire, but rather directly into the heart of it, and he knows he’s going to follow her.

There’s no way they can get in the door facing the street, since the front of the building and the roof had been immediately engulfed in flame, but when they duck into the alley between it and the next they find a side door, which Olivia busts through shoulder first. There’s smoke everywhere, cutting visibility to almost nothing, and the heat is already overwhelming, even though he doesn’t think the flames have reached this room yet. Rafael’s first thought as he ducks inside is that he wishes he’d thought to knock his helmet off, or that they’d had time to strip out of their armor entirely, because he’s not sure how much protection it will actually offer in this situation and it’s making everything, moving and seeing and breathing, even harder.

He concentrates on following Olivia, the flashes of her armor he can see through the smoke, and on staying as low underneath the smoke as he can manage. While he’s never volunteered with any of the fire brigades, but he doesn’t think he needs any sort of actual training or expertise to know that the creaking he can hear above them is bad. Judging by the way Olivia is charging blindly through the smoke towards the shouting, she’s come to the same conclusion.

She shoulders through another door to reveal four kids, none of whom can be older than sixteen or so, and he bites back a surge of annoyance at the clinking of glass bottles when they scramble to their feet. It isn’t their fault that their illicit drinking spot had burst into flames, and they certainly could never have anticipated a dragon. Olivia ushers them out ahead of her, instructing them to follow the wall towards the door, and he moves to follow her again but stops short when he hears… something.

“Barba? We need to go.”

“I heard something.”

“Where?”

“Next room, I think.” He tries to shake the feeling, but then he hears it again, a sort of scrambling sound from his right. Olivia catches his arm when he moves that way.

“The fire brigade-”

“We both know they won’t get here in time to do any kind of real search. This place is about to come down, and they’ll be concentrating on saving the other buildings.” As if to reinforce his words, something huge crashes down in another room with enough force to make the whole building shake, and both of them duck instinctively, Olivia tugging on his arm.

“Rafa,” she says, and for the first time he can hear the crack of fear in her voice.

“I’ll be right behind you. Go.” Once again he wishes he could see her face, but her visor is still in place, and the smoke makes everything worse. Instead he rests his hand over hers for a moment, and then pulls away to head in the direction of the noise.

It takes him a bit to actually locate the door to the next room, and three tries before it gives away under his shoulder. Dizzy from the smoke, he thinks blearily that he really needs to have Olivia show him how to do that properly. The room appears to be empty, even when he makes a quick circuit to check that no one is trapped in any of the darkened corners, and he’s just about to put the noise down to a trick of the smoke and the heat when he hears a very clear _meow_ from the doorway he’s just turned back towards.

“Fuck.”

He takes two steps in that direction and then has to stop short because two cats have appeared out of the smoke at his feet, not kittens but too skinny and long-legged to really be fully grown yet, one black and one grey. The black one looks up at him and meows again, and the smoke must really be getting to him, because Rafael thinks it sounds a little annoyed that it had taken him this long to find them.

“Fuck,” he repeats, and he looks around for something he can wrap them in to protect them from the heat of his armor. There’s a bit of what he thinks used to be a tarp of some kind that almost comes apart in his hands when he picks it up, but it will have to do. Spending a lot of time searching for something better won’t do any of them good if the roof comes down while he’s doing it.

Rafael cradles the cats against his chest with one arm and uses the other to keep himself close to the wall, trying not to think about how much his knees ache from crouching for so long or the fact that he’s pretty sure he should have made it outside by now, there can’t possibly have been this much wall between him and the door, maybe he’s heading in the wrong direction entirely, maybe he’d been paying too much attention to Olivia and not enough to where they were going and-

His fingers find the doorjamb and he wants to breathe a sigh of relief, but he still needs all the air he can get. He shoves his helmet off as soon as he clears the alley, shifting his grip on the cats so he can undo and drop both his gauntlets, shedding as much of his armor as he can as quickly as he can. There appear to be several fire brigades on the scene now, some directing streams of water at the nearby buildings and some working to keep back the crowd that has gathered. The fire is big enough to provide quite a bit of light, and Rafael spots the kids they’d gone in after, blankets wrapped around them, talking to two firefighters.

His heart drops into his stomach when he realizes that Olivia isn’t with them, that he can’t see her anywhere in the crowd. He stops dead, even though he knows he’s still too close to the building, desperately searching for the familiar shape of her helmet, the flash of the SVU insignia on her shoulder. One of the firefighters near the crowd is walking towards him, presumably to usher him to safety and maybe even drape a blanket around his shoulders, but when he reaches him, all Rafael does is carefully but unceremoniously deposit the two cats into his arms.

“Hold these guys,” he says, in response to the other knight’s surprised yelp. He’d just gotten them out of the building, he’s certainly not taking them with him if he has to go back in after-

The sound of Olivia’s armor colliding with his can’t be nearly as cacophonous as it feels, but he swears his ears are ringing as he wraps his arms around her, turns his face into her hair and leans in so that he can smell _her_ underneath the smoke and the sweat. She must have dropped her gauntlets at some point too, because he can feel her fingers threaded through the hair at the back of his head.

“That was really dumb, Barba,” she says, voice hoarse from the smoke, and he laughs, because of course that’s what she says while she’s hugging him like she wants to dent his armor with her embrace.

“I saved the cats, didn’t I? Pretty sure that makes me a hero.”

“Plenty of stupid heroes,” she says, but he can feel her smile against her neck. Can feel when it falls too, and her embrace sags a little. “Rafa, there was a dragon.”

“I know,” he replies, and then he leans back so she can see his face as he repeats it, so she can fully understand what he means when he says it. “I know.”

His abuelita used to tell him stories about the dragon at bedtime. He used to go looking for it in the hills north of the Bronx with Alex and Eddie. Every book, every oral folktale, every painting or tapestry, every story about the dragon that exists in the kingdom in one form or the other, he’s heard them all.

He knows what the dragon being here means, knows for certain now what Alex intends to do, and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, knows absolutely what he has to do concerning the king.

It feels like that moment should lead to something monumental happening right then, but what actually happens is that the firefighter standing next to them clears his throat, glancing between the two of them.

“I, uh, think these are yours,” he says, transferring the cats back into Rafael’s arms. The black one meows at him, once again managing to sound annoyed somehow, but both of them curl up against his breastplate as best they can. “You guys were on patrol when it went up? My lieutenant will want to talk to you once we’ve got this under control, before you go off and report to anyone else.”

On one hand, Rafael is desperate to get up to the castle and talk to Alex, to explain what they’d seen and start building his argument. On the other, there’s an insistent voice in the back of his head wondering what he’s going to do if even a dragon doesn’t change things. Plus, he knows Olivia won’t do anything that would complicate another lieutenant’s life, or rather the lives of the common blood knights under his or her command, and he doesn’t particularly want to either. After tonight, he has a new respect for the fire brigade volunteers.

So they sit and wait, watching as the fire brigade monitor the blaze as it gradually dies down. Olivia keeps a hand at the bend of his elbow and Rafael has one foot hooked behind her ankle, leaning against each other. He wants to be at home, he wants to be out of his armor, he desperately wants a shower and his bed, but more than anything he wants to be with Olivia, doesn’t want to let her out of his sight or be out of hers, so he doesn’t mind much that the waiting ends up dragging out past midnight.

Well, he doesn’t mind as much as he might have. The cats curl up at his feet and sleep, and he finds himself wishing that he had something more comfortable for them to lie on than a bit of tarp on the grass.

When the brigade’s lieutenant, Lady Quinn, finally makes her way over to them and they’re able to give her their report, he can tell that she’s torn between incredulity at their claims and the evidence in front of her eyes, the clear and detailed report they give. In the end, she writes down a few things she’ll need for her own report and lets them leave. Technically their patrol shift lasts for a few more hours, but Quinn had dispatched two of her men to cover it while they remained on the scene waiting, so they head straight for the castle.

Unlike Rafael, who has tucked his gauntlets into his helmet, Olivia has strapped hers back into place, helmet held neatly under her arm. For the first time since he’d met her though, she looks uncomfortable in her armor, tension radiating off of her, and he understands why. After what’s happened, he’s sure she wants to get home to Noah, and instead she’s staring down an entire night of reports and the sort of bureaucracy she hates.

“You should go home.”

She laughs. “Yeah.”

“I mean it, Liv. Go home. See your kid, get some sleep.”

“We need to make our report.”

“I can do that. You can give yours in the morning. We were together most of the time, and I heard your report to Quinn. I can give my report to whichever lord knight is on duty tonight, and you can do yours tomorrow. You and I have both given separate patrol reports before.”

“You shouldn’t have to do this alone. You _don’t_ have to do this alone.”

“I’m volunteering to do it alone, Liv,” he says, blatantly ignoring that they both know she’s talking about something bigger than a single report, “Plus, this is important. At least one of us should make our report after a good night’s sleep.”

He doesn’t think either of them will manage that, but at least Olivia can go home, shed her armor, and see Noah. It’ll take the edge off at least, and since the only thing that is going to do that for Rafael is talking to Alex, he thinks she should take advantage of that and at least catch a nap, have some breakfast, walk Noah to school.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She hesitates, but he can already tell he’s won when her shoulders finally relax inside her armor.

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“See you then.”

He heads for the entrance to the knights’ quarters, both because it means he doesn’t have to bother anyone manning the front gates and because it’s the closest to the royal wing. If no one has woken Alex yet, he’ll do it himself, and he’d like to see any of the guards stop him right now.

But Rita is waiting for him just inside the door, wearing her Royal Guard armor, which means she’s on duty, and hope flares in his chest. If she’s been sent to meet him, that means Alex is probably already awake, that he’s been told what happened and he wants to hear Rafael’s report as soon as he can.

“The king and Lord Abraham are waiting for you in the throne room.”

It flares again. “Why’s Lord Abraham there?”

“He’s the lord knight on duty,” she explains with a roll of her eyes, and Rafael groans.

Lord Hank Abraham had never actually been a knight, but he’s become one of Alex’s most trusted advisors in the last few years, which came with certain perks. One of those perks was being placed into the rotation as one of the lord knights, and while the others in the position had protested, particularly Lord Commander Dodds, there wasn’t much they could do once Alex had awarded him the title.

“Rafael, they’re saying you’re claiming there was a dragon,” she says as he starts up the hallway, and he turns back towards, the cats shifting in his arms, “What the hell are those?”

“They’re cats, Rita, I assume you’ve seen some before,” he responses, glancing around for something to put them in and settling on a box he can carry easily, “What the hell do you mean I’m _claiming_ to have seen a dragon? It’s not exactly something you can confuse for something else. Olivia and I both saw it.”

“I believe you, Rafael, but they don’t. Or at least they’re going to pretend they don’t.”

“Why would the king get up in the middle of the night just to tell me he doesn’t believe me?”

“I don’t know. To make sure he’s the first one to speak to you? To ask you, as his friend, not to tell anyone else? You and I both know what he’s planning to do, and we both know plenty of myths about the kingdom’s dragon, and we both know that the king knows them as well.”

Rafael fights to keep the hope alive in his chest. “He’s my friend. He’ll hear me out.”

Rita looks grim. “I hope so, Barba. Like I said, they’re waiting for you. You want me to take those?” she asks, gesturing at the box, and his arms tighten involuntarily around it.

“No, I’ve got it. I’m the one who got them out of the fire, I think I can handle carrying them around in a box for a little while.”

“Okay. Good luck,” she says, and he knows she’s not talking about the cats. Or at least she’s mostly not talking about the cats.

Abraham and Alex are both up on the dais, Abraham leaning down to speak to Alex on the throne, but they both straighten up when Rafael enters. He stops in front of the platform, setting the box carefully at his feet, and Alex rises with a smile.

“I understand that you’ve had an interesting evening, Sir Barba. You and Sir Benson are to be commended for your bravery.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“There will be an investigation, of course. Lady Quinn sent one of her men to inform me of the situation, and I’ll be speaking to her in the morning.”

“An investigation?”

“Into what caused the fire. Surely you don’t think it was spontaneous combustion, Sir Barba?” Alex jokes, and Abraham laughs. Rafael swallows against the dread welling in his throat.

“No, Your Majesty. I don’t understand the need for an investigation. Sir Benson and I saw what started the fire. It was a dragon.”

Both Alex and Abraham laugh.

“Sir Barba,” Abraham says, “It’s been a long night, and you’ve been through a lot. I’m sure you’re exhausted. Perhaps it would be better if you waited until morning to give your report. Give yourself a chance to think things over.”

“What exactly do you feel I need to think over, Lord Abraham? I saw what I saw. It was a dragon.”

“I’m sure you’re convinced of that now. But after a few hours sleep, maybe you’ll come to a more… realistic conclusion about what you experienced.”

“Exactly what conclusion do you believe I’m going to come to? Of all the things I could imagine or lie about, why would I choose a dragon if it wasn’t what I actually saw? Why would I pick something that I would know you would have trouble believing?”

“There’s been a lot of tension in the city recently, particularly among the knights. A lot of rumors. You might be allowing those rumors to cloud your understanding of the situation,” Abraham says, and Rafael’s fists clench.

If he’s already connected the fire to the stories and thus to Alex’s plan, there must be some part of him, and perhaps some part of the king, that believes what Rafael is saying. He looks past him at Alex, who has been coolly watching the exchange.

“Dragons aren’t real, Sir Barba. They’re stories. Myths. Meant to teach us prudence in the affairs of a kingdom. But they are creatures of imagination and nothing more.”

Alex is perfectly calm, as though they’re having a completely mundane conversation sometime in the afternoon, as though his oldest friend isn’t standing in front of him in soot-stained armor in the middle of the night.

“You used to believe in dragons,” he says, hating the way his voice shakes, and he wonders if any of them, if Alex realizes what he’s really saying, what he’s trying desperately to keep behind his teeth.

_You used to believe in me._

“I grew up, Rafael,” Alex answers, not quite meeting his eyes, and it’s like his exhaustion crashes down on him anew. The only reason he manages to stay on his feet is pure stubbornness, and the anger swelling in his gut. “I think Lord Abraham is right. A night’s sleep would do you good.”

“I need to write my report still.”

“That can wait until morning. Fresh eyes and all.”

“I want to make sure I have all the details right. I don’t want to forget anything.”

“Of course. You are dismissed with my permission, Sir Barba.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” He lets the motion of stooping down to pick up the cat’s box stand in for a bow. “Lord Abraham.”

In truth, he’d much rather go back to his rooms than sit in the knight’s hall to write his report. He’s not actually worried he’ll forget a single detail of what happened tonight, but that fact is part of the reason he can’t just go collapse into bed and sleep; now the very idea is tinged with Abraham and Alex’s patronizing suggestions, and he knows he won’t be able to get any real rest until he writes everything down, until he’s made an official record of what happened.

\--------------

By the time he’s gotten everything written down, it’s morning, sun beginning to filter in through the tall windows in the hall, and Rafael is struggling to keep his eyes open. The cats had napped on and off in their box, occasionally meowing at him until he lifted them out so they could wander up and down the table. The grey one seemed determined to sniff every inch of it, but the black one was mostly content to curl up by his elbow as he wrote. Between paragraphs, he had idly thought about names for them.

Once he’s finished, he makes sure that the report is properly filed before he returns the cats to their box and sets off for his rooms. He’s never been so glad that he lives in the castle, in a good-sized apartment in a little wing away from most of the other knights’ quarters, _a place befitting his position_ Alex had joked when he’d assigned it to him a decade or so ago.

Rafael doesn’t even bother locking the door behind him before he starts to strip out of his armor, dropping each piece with a clang. He should store it carefully, check if there are any repairs needed, and take it down to the armory so he can clean it properly, but right now he really can’t be bothered. Maybe after he’s taken a long shower and gotten some sleep, but looking at the pile of metal he’s accumulated at his feet, he suspects it’ll be there for awhile.

He crouches down and lifts the two cats out of their box.

“I suppose I’ll have to find you guys a real bed and some food and… other things. I’ll look into it, but for now you should make yourselves comfortable.” He’s too tired to think about how ridiculous he sounds, and he stands with a groan, turning towards his bathroom.

Someone knocks on his door. He considers not answering, or maybe even shouting at them to go away, but he reminds himself it could be important.

Rafael opens the door to find Olivia standing there, dressed comfortably but looking absolutely exhausted.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she says, smiling softly, “I’m sorry for just showing up like this, but… I walked Noah to school and then the house was empty and I just…”

“It’s alright, Liv. Come in.”

He moves out of the way, but Olivia only takes one step forward, just into the doorway so she can wrap her arms around him. She presses her face against his shoulder, fingers threading into the hair at the back of his head again as he returns her embrace.

“You smell,” she says after a few minutes.

“Sorry. I haven’t gotten a chance to shower yet.”

“You were up all night?”

“Yes. I was talking to Alex and then I had to write my report. I wanted to make sure there was an official record of what happened as soon as possible.”

Something in his voice must give him away, because Olivia leans away from him to look at his face.

“Rafa-” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Not now, at least. What about you? You don’t look like you got much sleep either.”

“I tried, but… I ended up sitting in Noah’s room for most of the night, watching him sleep. It helped, but it’s not the same as actually getting any sleep myself. You should take your shower, Rafa, it’ll help. I can look after myself.”

“That I know, Liv.”

He sets the water in the shower as cold as he can bear it, like he can wash away the lingering heat along with the sweat and grime. It takes three full-body scrubs and two separate times washing his hair before he feels clean enough to climb out and pull on a t-shirt and pajama pants. When he walks into his bedroom, he finds the two cats curled up on a shirt he must have missed the laundry hamper with, and Olivia is asleep on his bed, curled up on top of the covers. He sighs, but he knows he’ll never be able to bring himself to wake her up and his couch is pretty comfortable.

He touches her shoulder gently. “Liv? No, don’t get up,” he says when she blinks her eyes open. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll be out on the couch if you need anything. Get some sleep.”

She catches at his wrist, although it takes her a couple tries. He’s not sure how awake she really is. “Stay.”

“No, I don’t want you to have to move. It’s alright.”

“No one needs to move. Stay.”

“Liv, you’re- I’m not sure-”

“Rafa. _Stay.”_

Rafael sighs again, but it’s not like it’s an unappealing suggestion. He rounds the foot of the bed so he can stretch out next to her, and Olivia rolls over so she can wrap one hand around his nearer arm. She’s back asleep before he’s even fully settled, and he can’t help smiling as he closes his eyes.

\----------------

When he wakes up, Olivia has rolled closer, both hands wrapped around his arm and her face pressed against his shoulder, one ankle hooked between his. As he looks at her, her eyes flutter open.

“Morning,” she says, shifting even closer.

“It’s actually afternoon, I think,” he replies, but doesn’t lift his watch to check because that’s the arm she has ahold of. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better then I have in a long time.” She stretches without letting go of him. “You have cats now apparently.”

He glances down at the foot of the bed, which both cats have apparently decided is more comfortable than his discarded t-shirt. “I guess I do."

Olivia laughs, and he shifts onto his side. She lifts a hand, pushing it back from where it's fallen across his forehead. “I like your hair without all the gunk.”

“It’s my armor,” he replies, and normally he’d be embarrassed to say something like that, even to Olivia, but he’s decided that here, in the warm, dark space of his room, his bed, with the bright plume of the dragon’s fire still pressing at the back of his eyes and Olivia curled up next to him, the unreality of it all means that he doesn’t have to be embarrassed.

“Against what?”

“I don’t know. What people expect me to be. Or expect me not to be. Or maybe I just like having my hair out of my face.”

She laughs again, still running her fingers through his hair, and then her expression sobers. “There was a dragon, Rafael.”

“I know.”

“And the king doesn’t believe us.”

“Or he just doesn’t want to. You should still make your report, and I’m going to talk to him without Abraham looking over his shoulder. We have to keep pushing, this is too-”

Olivia sits up suddenly, legs swinging over the side of the bed, and he winces. He doesn’t need to tell her how important all of this is, or how dangerous. She’d gone face-to-face with the dragon same as he had, and she’d been the first one into the fire. He stands and walks around to the other side of the bed, sitting down next to her.

“There’s a dragon.”

“I know,” he repeats, resting his hand on hers cautiously. He almost pulls it away when she looks down at them, but before he can she turns hers over and interlaces their fingers. Rafael’s breath catches.

“No, I mean, there’s a dragon, and… I’m tired of being scared.”

“It’s a dragon, Liv. You’re allowed to be scared.”

“I’m not talking about the dragon.”

“Then wha-”

Her fingers are threaded through the hair at his nape again because she’s wrapped her free hand around his neck and shifted so she can press her mouth against his. Rafael gasps at the contact, and he can feel her start to pull away before he lifts his own hand to her cheek and kisses her back. She shifts as close as she can sitting next to him on the bed, and he opens his mouth against hers as her grip on his hair tightens.

Both of them are breathing hard when they finally break apart, and Olivia rests her forehead against his, hand still wrapped around his neck. It takes more effort than it should to open his eyes, but when he does he finds Olivia smiling at him softly. He traces her bottom lip with his thumb, delighting in the way she shivers.

Then she says, “Noah will be done with school soon,” and his heart, still beating too fast, plummets into his stomach.

“Right. Of course.” He starts to pull away, but Olivia just tightens her grip on him again. Rafael blinks at her in surprise.

“No, I didn’t mean- I just need to go get him, and it’ll give us both time to think. And then we can talk? _Really_ talk? As soon as we find the time?”

“Yes. Of course,” he says, and she kisses him again, quickly, softly.

He can’t help his smile. Not a mistake then, or a regret. Just a moment, for both of them, to figure out what finally crossing this line means. And then they’ll talk, like they always do, but different too.

Rafael walks Olivia to the door, where they linger for a few moments, unsure what to do, before she presses a kiss against his cheek and leaves with a smile. He leans against his door for a few minutes, taking deep breaths, and then he pushes himself upright to go check on the cats and figure out what he’s going to say to Alex, and to Olivia.

\-------------

It’s been three days, and he hasn’t gotten a chance to talk to either Olivia or Alex.

Lord Abraham has been with the king every single time Rafael has tried to speak with him, and he would be tempted to make a scene in order to actually get to talk to Alex if he didn’t think Alex was just as much a part of avoiding him as his advisor. The rumors, both about the fire and about the king’s plans, have only gotten more rampant, but since Alex won’t confirm or even comment on any of it, they remain just rumors.

He’s talked to pretty much everyone else he thinks might be able to give him any information, but neither Rita nor Lady Elana Barth had known anything more than he did, although both believed him about the dragon, and he hadn’t had high hopes for Jack McCoy in the first place, since he was a leftover from Alex’s father’s council and has never been particularly close to the current king. He can’t help wondering if Rita and Elana are being purposefully left out of their respective circles because Alex knows that Rafael is close with them.

Eddie is out of town again, and he can only assume it’s on Alex’s instructions, or worse, on Abraham’s.

As for Olivia, he’s seen her plenty over the past few days, but they haven’t managed to find any significant stretch of time with the sort of privacy he thinks they both want for this particular conversation. So he’s spent most of the past few days worrying about the dragon, which has made no further appearances, worrying about Alex, and trying not to worry about his relationship with Olivia.

This has mostly resulted in him buying a lot of toys for the cats, who he’s named Juez and Arabella.

He’s heading towards the castle from the library when he hears someone shout behind him, and he turns to see Noah running towards him, his amused mother following behind.

“Uncle Rafa!” he says, colliding with him in a hug, and Rafael has to take a moment to keep his balance. Noah looks up at him with bright eyes. “Momma says you have cats now!”

“She does, does she?”

“Yeah! Can I meet them? Will you bring them over? It’s spaghetti night, you should bring them over for dinner!”

“Hmm, I’m not sure they like spaghetti,” he says, and Olivia laughs.

“You’re being silly, Uncle Rafa! You can eat spaghetti when you bring the cats over!”

“Ah, that makes sense. Maybe we should check with your mom first, make sure there’s enough spaghetti for me?”

Noah turns back to his mother, and she laughs again.

“There’s always enough spaghetti for you, Rafa. You should come over. Noah can play with the cats and we can… talk,” she says, eyes sparkling, and Rafael’s heartbeat picks up.

“I’ll definitely be there then. Do you need me to-”

There’s a _whoosh_ that Rafael recognizes, and Olivia’s hand immediately drops to her hip, where the handle of her sword would be if she wasn’t out for an afternoon with her son. He turns slowly to watch the dragon rise over the buildings at the edge of the city, and then with a single flap of its wings, glide slowly over the city itself. Rafael waits for the burst of flame, or multiple bursts, but they never come, and the dragon simply curls in a big circle back towards where it had first appeared before dropping out of sight.

Even with the shouting and Noah’s excited chattering, he catches Olivia’s comment.

“I’d like to see him try to deny that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Z, you really are terrible at writing slow burn.' Listen, in my defense I know this about myself and state it on a regular basis. And there's still a little bit of burn left, I'm just not quite patient enough to hold out all that long on the whole thing.
> 
> The first part of this chapter is dedicated to the firefighter!au that most fandoms deserve but few fandoms get. I'm sure there's someone out there who has gathered together all the sources on running into fires while wearing various pieces of armor and written, at the very least, a very interesting article about their expertise, but since my expertise is in cheese ball fights that took place before the battle of Gettysburg, I had to go with my best guess for what that would be like, which is 'extremely uncomfortable and becoming increasingly dangerous at a rapid rate.'
> 
> Not sure when chapter five will come out, because I'm hoping to finish truth curse fic here soon, but I'll do my best to get it out in a timely manner! You all have a little more sparring between Liv and Rafa to look forward to in that one, and some more blatant Terry Pratchett influences.


	5. Chapter 5

They have to stop at Olivia’s and wait for Lucy to arrive to watch Noah, so by the time they reach the castle the throne room is already full of people. Mike Dodds weaves his way towards them, looking sheepish.

“Sorry, lieutenant. My father insisted I come, but I can leave if you want me to.”

Olivia rolls her eyes, although he suspects it has more to do with Sir Dodds than it does with his son’s words.

“No, you’re fine. You might as well stay and see what he has to say,” she says, nodding towards the empty dias.

The two of them continue to talk, but Rafael isn’t paying enough attention to know what they’re saying. He keeps his focus on the dias as Alex emerges from the door at the back of the room, Abraham and two Royal Guards that he doesn’t know trailing after him, and as he walks up the steps his eyes catch Rafael’s.

Alex hesitates for just a second, then he adjusts his jacket, tilting his chin up to look out over the crowd, and it’s like he watches his old friend disappear behind an actual mask.

“Ladies and gentlemen, while I understand your concern, at this moment panic will do nothing but make matters worse. I’m going to need all of you to work with me to deal with this new challenge our kingdom is facing, so calmer heads  _ must  _ prevail.”

Alex is in his element now, magnetic and perfectly poised. Usually Rafael takes pride in watching him when he’s like this, but now he just feels sick to his stomach. He can feel Olivia glancing at him occasionally, even with most of her attention focused on the king.

“I am calling an immediate emergency meeting of my councilors to begin putting together a plan, but I promise that I will not allow this dragon to divide or decimate this kingdom. Not while it is in my charge. I suggest that each of you make yourselves and your squads available to your communities in order to reassure them. Thank you all for your time, and your service in the coming weeks.”

He nods to the crowd, and then his two guards step in front of him as he turns to speak to Abraham, like they expect someone to rush the stage. The volume in the room increases quickly, and Rafael can see the king’s councilors gathering in one corner, but no one attempts to follow Alex as he makes his way towards the back of the room. Rafael glances at Olivia, who nods before turning to speak with Dodds, and heads for the door.

Neither of the guards budge as he approaches them, although they exchange a nervous look.

“I’m sorry, Sir Barba, but I can’t let you through.”

“I need to speak with the king.”

“He’s asked not to be disturbed.”

“There’s a dragon. If that hasn’t sufficiently disturbed him, I doubt that I’ll manage it.”

“I’m sorry, but-”

“Let him through.” Rafael turns to find Rita standing there, and the guards share another look.

“Sir Calhoun, we have our orders and-”

“And I just gave you another one. So you really have to ask yourself who is more likely to be able and willing to make your lives a living hell for the next month or so, me or the king?”

Another look, and then the two guards move out of the way.

“Thank you,” Rafael says, and Rita nods as one of the guards pulls the door open.

The king’s private office is halfway down the hall, and Abraham is pulling the door closed behind himself as Rafael approaches.

“Sir Barba. I should have expected you.”

“I need to speak with the king.”

“He’s the king. What really matters is whether or not he needs to speak with you, and he’s asked for privacy in order to prepare for the council meeting.”

Abraham hasn’t fully closed the door behind him, and Rafael raises his voice slightly.

“I’d like to speak with my friend.”

“Your  _ friend- _ ”

“Lord Abraham,” Alex calls from inside the office, and Rafael realizes that he’s holding his breath, “It’s alright. Rafael, please come in.”

Even with circumstances as they are, he can’t resist smirking at Abraham as he twists past him. Alex is standing behind his desk, leaning over the papers spread across it. He glances up when Rafael shuts the door behind himself.

“I apologize for not believing you and Sir Benson earlier this week. Perhaps if I had, we would already have a plan in place to respond to this.”

“What sort of plan are you imagining?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you right at this moment. But I’m sure the councilors and I will be able to come up with something we can start with, and then we’ll build from there.”

“Alex,” he says, and waits until he looks up at him again before he continues, “You have to call off the invasion in the Bronx.”

His brow furrows. “Of course I’ve postponed those plans, we can’t spare the manpower right now.”

“I don’t mean postpone them. You have to announce that you’ve given up on the idea. That there won’t be an invasion.”

“I haven’t announced anything, Rafi, I can hardly announce that I’m calling off something that most people know nothing about.”

“Then you have to stop planning. Renounce it privately. Whatever you have to do to put a stop to it.”

“What reason would I have for doing that?”

“The same reason you chose not to believe to believe me about the dragon.”

“There was no ulterior motive there. At that time, what you were telling me was simply unbelievable. But a king doesn’t take direction from children’s stories. Like I said the other night, those are just myths.”

“So are dragons, Alex, but one is flying over your kingdom right now! You can’t believe it’s a coincidence that it’s shown up right as you’re planning to break your family’s agreement with a dragon?”

“Alleged agreement. And I think that dragons are predators, that this one saw an opportunity to strike us when we were vulnerable to it. And if it’s not intelligent enough to have specifically chosen to attack us at this moment, then yes, I believe it is a coincidence. Whatever the case may be, I won’t let this kingdom be dictated to through fear.”

Rafael wants to scream, because Alex is still talking like he’s giving a speech. Wants to grab him by the jacket and shake him, beg him to talk to him like they’re friends again, to drop the mask. There are so many more important things than fixing whatever has fractured in their friendship, but he feels like if he could just repair that, everything else would be so much easier.

“If you’re not going to listen to the stories, how are you going to figure out how to stop the dragon? Other than the myths, what information is there?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try my best. Which is why I need to prepare for this council meeting.”

Rafael can’t help his wince at the obvious dismissal. “Alejandro, don’t do this,” he says, forcing the words out through clenched teeth, “Don’t pretend-”

“No one’s pretending anything, Rafael. I’m doing what is best for this kingdom,  _ my kingdom _ , just as I’ve been doing my entire life. If you’d like, you’re more than welcome to join the meeting.”

He considers it for a moment, but he doubts it would do any good, and he can’t bear to have this same conversation over and over again in front of people.

“No, thank you.”

Abraham is standing across the hall as he leaves the room, but his smug look makes it clear he was listening in.

“Thank you for your input, Sir Barba. I’m sure the king will give it the attention it deserves.”

His emphasis on  _ deserves _ makes Rafael’s skin crawl, and he rounds on him. “He’d be better off taking it than any advice you’re going to give him.”

Abraham grins, still unbearably smug. “But we both know who he’s going to listen to, don’t we?”

Rafael tells himself he’s not dignifying the remark with a response as he walks away, hands clenched to keep them from shaking.

\--------------------

It’s been a week since the dragon took its initial flight over the city, and it’s made several appearances since, burning down two more abandoned buildings and setting fire to a fallow field to the south of town. There haven’t been any casualties yet, but the entire city feels like it’s holding its breath. Alex has made periodic appearances, generally waving to the crowds gathered outside from various balconies, but otherwise he’s been closed up in the castle with his councilors.

Rafael has been likewise closed up in the library for most of the week, but today Olivia has dragged him out into the training yard to spar. He’d tried to protest that Lord Dodds was too occupied with the dragon to worry about training hours and also that it was raining, but it had been a fairly feeble effort. It would take more that a dragon and a little rain to dissuade him from a sparring match with Olivia.

Especially since the rain actually gives him a bit of an advantage, something he rarely has in a fight with Olivia. But she swings harder and steps heavier than he does, and the increasingly muddy ground means she’s struggling to keep her balance on her attacks. Lighter on his feet, Rafael has managed to move her towards the castle wall that marks the back edge of the training ground, and she’s taking more risks as she runs out of room.

She lunges, and he parries her swing as her front foot slides again, opening her stance just enough that he can duck inside of her reach. He lowers his shoulder into her chest and drives her back the last few steps into the wall, trapping the blade of her sword against her belly with the handle of his own. Olivia tries to squirm free, but he’s got leverage, dropping a knee forward against the wall to pin her there with more of his weight and smirking when she huffs in frustration.

“Nice move, Barba.”

“I have to press my advantages when I have them,” he says, still smirking, but his breath catches when her gaze drops to his mouth and he realizes just how close their positions have left their faces. Even with their arms trapped between them, hands still wrapped around the handles of their swords, he wouldn’t have to lean forward all that much to kiss her.

“Liv?” he says, shifting so he’s slightly closer but leaning less of his weight against her.

“Rafa,” she replies, and he shivers at the puff of air against his lips. He leans in, stopping just short of actually being able to kiss her when she repeats his name.

“Yeah?” he asks, shifting back just enough to be struck motionless by the sight of her grin.

“I never actually ceded the fight.”

The pommel of her sword slams into his solar plexus, and he trips backwards with an  _ oof _ , landing on his ass in the mud. His own sword hits the ground with a splash as he loses his grip trying to catch himself, and Olivia is standing over him in a second, laughing.

“That was a dirty trick, Sir Benson.”

“Well, I have to press my advantages when I have them.”

Her sword is at her side, but there’s no way he could scramble for his without her managing to get her blade to his neck first. But her relaxed posture gives him an idea, and he tilts his chin up with a grin, holding a hand up towards her. Olivia helps him to his feet, still grinning, but he doesn’t let go of her hand once he’s upright. They’re face to face, and her eyes drop to his mouth once again.

“Liv?” he says, and she nods, which is nearly enough to make him drop his plan altogether, but it seems like a shame to waste the opportunity. He leans in, waiting until her eyes flutter shut before he whispers, “I never ceded either.”

Rafael twists her sword loose with his free hand, letting it fall to the ground as he presses her back towards the wall again in two big steps. They’re both laughing now, and when he feels her fingers snake under the chainmail on his half-armor to twist into his shirt, he stops resisting the urge to rest his forehead against hers.

“We appear to be at an impasse,” Olivia says, once she’s gotten her breath back.

He grins. “I don’t know how we’re going to resolve this.”

“I might have a few ideas. At least one.”

She tightens her grip on his shirt, and he leans in, letting his eyes close as his nose brushes hers.

“Lieutenant Benson!”

Rafael just stops himself from dropping his head down against Olivia’s shoulder, and he steps back to allow her to push herself away from the wall. He has to give Mike credit for the fact that he’s keeping a straight face as he jogs towards them, despite the fact that he had definitely seen their position just now, both their swords discarded in the mud behind Rafael.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but the king has requested your presence in the throne room. Both of you,” he adds, when Olivia glances at Rafael, “My father sent me to find you. He said it was urgent.”

“Any idea what this is about?” she asks as they follow Mike up to the castle, swords returned to their scabbards.

“No. I haven’t spoken to Alex in a week. And all of Rita’s shifts have been with Yelina or the girls.”

“You think he’s intentionally keeping her away because she’s your friend? He thinks she might pass information along to you that he doesn’t want you to have.” Rafael shrugs. “What about Lady Barth? Surely he hasn’t kept her out of council meetings just because he knows you’re friends? He’s the one who appointed her in the first place.”

“No, but she’s been just as busy as Alex has been, if not busier. I haven’t spoken to her about what the council has been able to figure out or any plans they might be making either.”

“I think we might be about to find out,” she says, as Mike leads them towards the throne room.

The group gathered there was unexpected. Alex was sitting on the throne, of course, but Abraham was absent, despite the fact that Rafael hadn’t seen the king without his advisor since the dragon had first appeared. Lord Dodds and Elana were both there, in the shiny armor that was for the most part functionally useless outside of council meetings. Eddie was there as well, in his considerably rougher armor, and Rafael assumed he’d just been pulled in off a patrol, judging by the mud on his boots. He realized that he and Olivia had probably tracked in a considerable amount of mud themselves, especially considering that most of his back was covered in it, but no one seemed to be paying it any mind.

“Sir Benson, Sir Barba, thank you for joining us so quickly. I’m afraid I have a rather urgent and difficult mission to ask of you.” Eddie is watching Alex curiously, but Dodds and Elana are both stone-faced. “I need you and your squad to slay the dragon.”

Rafael feels Olivia tense next to him, and only resists the urge to reach out for her hand by clenching his own into fists.

“Sir?”

“My councilors and I have been discussing how to deal with the kingdom’s problem for days now, and we’ve come to a consensus that our best initial plan is a direct approach. There have been multiple reports of the dragon disappearing into the woods south of the city, and our reconnaissance has determined that its lair is likely to be somewhere near Manhattan Lake. We think striking at it there when it is not expecting an attack has a much better chance of succeeding than attempting to stop it in the middle of one of its own attacks. And we’ve chosen you and your squad for the mission, if you’ll accept.”

_Don’t do it,_ Rafael thinks immediately, _Let someone else be the hero, Liv._ _Please don’t._

But he would never actually say that out loud, certainly not here, and he knows it wouldn’t change anything if he did. Even as he’d watch emotions flicker across Olivia’s face so quickly that he doubted anyone else has caught them, he’d heard her voice in his he ad:  _ All I’ve ever wanted to be is a knight, and my duty is to protect the kingdom, no matter what the threat looks like.  _ And now Alex is going to use that to cover up his own stubbornness or selfishness or cowardice, and the urge to beg her to tell him to fuck off swells in his chest again.

“It’s an honor, Your Majesty-” And Rafael almost smirks, wondering if Alex can tell how completely she’s slipped into lieutenant mode- “But I think SVU might be undermanned for a mission this important.”

“I thought so as well,” Alex says, looking at Eddie, “Which is why I’m also requesting that Sir Garcia’s squad provide backup for SVU. Lady Barth will act as the official leader of the mission and as a representative of myself and the council. And I assume that Sir Barba will want to be involved, despite the fact that he is not technically a member of either of the squads assigned to the mission.”

“Of course,” Rafael says before Alex can even turn towards him, feeling Olivia startle next to him at the mere suggestion that he wouldn’t be there alongside her and her squad.

“Then the personnel for the mission is set. Which is good, because given the frequency of the dragon’s attacks, I’d like the mission to commence on Wednesday morning.”

“You’d like us to plan something like this in three days?” Olivia asks, and even Eddie looks unsure.

“I understand your concerns, Sir Benson, and I wish I could give you more time, but we can’t risk allowing it to escalate before we respond to the attacks it has already made on the city. Lady Barth has already spent the past few days putting together plans for the mission, and I’m sure between the two of you and your squad you’ll be able to adequately prepare. Your kingdom is depending on you.”

“We can get started now, if you’d like,” Barth says, clearly jumping at the first opportunity to be dismissed. If the icy look on her face is any indication, her assignment to the mission probably had more to do with practicality-- she was the newest member of the council with the most recent title, which meant she was most recently a practicing knight-- than because of any enthusiasm for the plan on her part.

Olivia turns to him and he nods. “Go. I’ll let Lucy know, and if she can’t stay, I will.”

“Then I’ll let all of you go,” Alex says, rising to his feet as Olivia and Elana make their way towards the side door that leads to the council’s chambers, “I’m sure you have things you need to get to.”

The Doddses come together immediately, and Rafael wonders what Lord Dodds thinks of the mission. It’s exactly the sort of thing that an ambitious man would volunteer his son for, but he’d seemed just as upset as Elana had. He can feel Alex’s eyes on him, but he turns to head for the door without looking at him; the prospect of what is coming in a few days already has his heart wedged up into his throat, he can’t possibly handle the way that talking to Alex makes him feel these days on top of that.

Eddie calls down the hallway after him, and Rafael slows down to let him catch up.

“It’ll be just like when we were kids, out in the hills hunting dragons,” he says as he comes up next to him, and Rafael stops dead as his entire body goes cold.

“Eddie-” Eddie Garcia, one of his oldest friends, Eddie who has a son and takes care of his mother, Eddie who will do this because Alex asked him to, because Alex is his friend and his friend is the king and the king is- “Eddie, you shouldn’t go on this mission.”

“Why not? This is Alex.”

_ That’s exactly why you can’t go. Because Alex needs you to, and he knows you’ll go.  _ “This is- This is a real dragon, Eddie, not the imaginary things we used to chase after. We could all end up dead.”

“I’m a knight, Rafi. I’ve gone on plenty of missions where that might’ve happened. Alex needs us, the kingdom needs us.”

“Josè needs you. And your mother. What happens to them if you die because Alex asked you to?”

“Then Alex will look after them. Everyone going on this mission has people they might be leaving behind if something happens. I know you do.” Rafael is trying very hard not to think about his mother and grandmother, about Rita, about Olivia and Noah. “I can’t turn Alex down, Rafi. He needs us.”

_ He doesn’t. He doesn’t need us to do this, but he wants us to because that means- _

But he knows he’s never going to convince Eddie, had known that even before he’d said anything, and he’s too exhausted to keep fighting, too overcome by the fact that in two days they could both be dead. Eddie rests a hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe soon your abuela won’t be the only one calling you caballero del sol.”

Rafael nods, heart back in his throat.

\------------

Noah is asleep on Olivia’s lap, legs splayed out across Rafael’s. He normally would have been in bad hours ago, but Rafael doesn’t blame Olivia for wanting to hold onto him as long as possible. His arm is wrapped around her shoulders, and he understands the feeling.

They’ve been busy over the last two days. Olivia’s entire squad has been, trying to prepare for the mission tomorrow morning. Mostly it’s been running around for the sake of running around, since there’s only so much actual preparation that any of them can do, but now there really is nothing left to do but wait. And there’s nowhere Rafael would rather wait than here on Olivia’s couch, although he knows he needs to get home soon.

He’d thought about going to the Bronx, but ultimately decided against it. It would have taken him the better part of two days, and his mother and grandmother would only worry if they knew, so he tells himself that it’s better this way. If he comes back, then they can hear the whole story all at once, and if he doesn’t, well… he hopes Alex at least delivers the news himself, in person.

Olivia sighs, tilting her head against his shoulder, and Rafael drops his face down against her hair.

“I should get him to bed soon,” she says, nodding down at Noah, but neither of them actually moves for a few more minutes. “Okay. Okay.”

“Liv, I don’t think one night of sleeping in your bed will ruin his sleep schedule.”

“I know. It’s just- He has school tomorrow. And if something happens tomorrow, it’ll be his last normal day for a long time. I don’t want him to spend it worrying about me, and if I let him sleep in the bed tonight, he’ll know something is up.”

Rafael presses a kiss against her hair. Noah is a friendly kid, and he’s never been shy about how much he likes having his Uncle Rafa visit, but he’s old enough now that most evenings he entertains himself while they cook dinner or after they eat while the grown-ups talk. Tonight, he’s stuck by their sides throughout, and he’s spent pretty much the entire time after dinner crawling between their laps.

“He’s a pretty bright kid, Liv, I think he knows something is going on. You should do this for both of you.”

   She sighs again, but nods and lets him help her to her feet. Noah is almost too big to be carried, but he knows Olivia isn’t going to let him go one second before she needs to. Once she’s laid him on her bed, Rafael leans down to press a kiss against his curls before retreating to the kitchen so Olivia can say goodnight and tuck him in. After a few minutes, she comes out to lean against the counter next to him and they stand in silence, shoulders touching. If he concentrates very hard, he can almost imagine this is any other night, the two of them lingering over their goodbyes without talking about why.

“You know, we never did get a chance to talk,” Olivia says, like she’s reading his mind, and he can’t help but laugh softly.

“No, we didn’t.” He glances at her as she shifts just enough to take his hand, entwining their fingers. “You want to talk about it now?”

“I…” She’s biting her bottom lip, and he squeezes her hand.

“It’s alright, Liv.”

“No, it’s not, but… I don’t want to say or do anything just because…”

“Because tomorrow a dragon might slow roast us and crunch up our bones?”

She laughs, a quick, soft sound. “You really do have a way with words, Barba.”

“I try my best. We don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to.”

“I  _ do  _ want to. I want a lot of things.” Rafael swallows against a suddenly dry throat. “But I don’t want any of it to be tinged even slightly with the idea that we only said or did those things because we thought we might die the next day. I want it all to be because it’s  _ us, _ and right now…”

“I understand, Liv. I really do.” He squeezes her hand again. “So I’m going to go home, and you’ll go to bed, and then… then tomorrow will be here, and after that, we’ll talk.” Both of them are far too aware of everything he’s not saying to bother with any of it, but Olivia doesn’t let go of his hand, even after she’s walked him to her front door.

“I know you don’t want to scare him, but give Noah my love for me in the morning?” he asks, and she nods, still holding on to him, and it had seemed so easy when he was laying it all out step by step, but he can’t bring himself to let go of her either.

Olivia steps into his space, tracing her fingers up his arm and across his shoulders, and he shivers when her fingers brush through the hair at his neck, as they trace the line of his jaw. Her other hand comes up to cup his cheek, and he nods as she leans in, tugging him forward.

“Just in case,” she breathes, and then she presses her mouth against his hard, like she’s trying to leave an impression against his lips. He wraps his arms around her waist, shifting to lean back against her door and pulling her against him, letting her rest her weight against him.

When they finally break apart, both their chests are heaving, and Rafael rests his forehead against Olivia’s as they try to catch their breaths. He can’t help thinking about a few days ago in the rain, and when exactly had his life started to move like this, so that moment felt simultaneously as though it had happened just hours ago and in another lifetime entirely?

Olivia kisses him once, twice, three times, lingering on the last one for a few moments, still cradling his face in her hands, and he kisses her back, still breathless, until she wraps her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. They stand like that for a long time, and when Olivia finally pulls back, her eyes are glassy.

“Just in case,” she repeats, and he nods, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He can’t speak past the lump in his throat, so he presses his lips against hers one last time, hoping she understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is ready for the next three chapters to get fully wild. I'm not entirely certain that that last conversation and scene between Rafael and Olivia ended up how I wanted it to, but I do not know how to fix it right now, so this is what we're going with. Might come back and change it later if I figure out what exactly about it I want to fix.
> 
> Anyway, apologies for how long this update took, I will try my very best not to do that again!


End file.
